Major power outage in northern India; trains halted

New Delhi, March 7 (IANS) A major snag in the northern power grid early Friday led to large-scale power outage in and around the Indian capital for about six hours, halting trains on their tracks and forcing some power stations to shut down. Northern Railway said 25 trains had been delayed in a big way, including Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains to and from various cities.

National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) officials said they had been forced to halt operations for a while at three of its plants here, in Uttar Pradesh and in Haryana.

A spokesman for the Northern Regional Load Dispatch Centre (NRLDC) of the Power Grid Corporation said 50 lines of 400 kv in Delhi, western Uttar Pradesh and Haryana tripped at about 3 a.m. The system was restored at about 9 a.m., he added.

“Due to the grid problem, the NTPC’s plants at Dadri (Uttar Pradesh), Faridabad (Haryana) and Badarpur (Delhi) stopped working for a short while but have now resumed operation,” NTPC spokesman T.S. Rajput told IANS.

A Northern Railway spokesman said: “The problem began at 2 a.m. with intermittent power failure being reported from the northern grid. The situation worsened by 6.30 a.m.

“Most of the Delhi bound Rajdhani trains were delayed by several hours. Although the Shatabdi trains left Delhi on time, many were stuck en route,” said Rajeev Saxena, chief public relations officer of Northern Railways.

The Delhi-Bhopal Shatabdi was stuck on the tracks near Faridabad in Haryana for over two hours.

“Some of the trains have been diverted and we are constantly in touch with the Power Grid Corporation.”